The nation’s second-largest reservoir will get a boost to keep water levels from dropping too low, but the fix won’t last long.
Water levels in Lake Powell, which sits in southern Utah and northern Arizona, are on course for historic lows after a record-setting dry winter and a 26-year drought fueled by climate change. The federal government announced a strategy to prop up the reservoir and avoid infrastructure problems at Glen Canyon Dam, which holds it back in Page, Arizona.
The Bureau of Reclamation will take water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Utah and Wyoming and send it downstream to Lake Powell. The agency, which manages major dams and reservoirs across the Western U.S., will also ratchet back the amount of water released from Lake Powell.
The efforts are mainly focused at keeping Glen Canyon Dam running smoothly. If water levels drop much further, Lake Powell’s surface will fall below the intakes that pull water into hydropower generators within the dam.
They generate electricity for about 5 million people across seven states.
Below that, water could only pass through a rarely-used set of backup tubes. Water experts worry that they are unreliable, and may not be able to carry enough water for Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico to meet legal requirements for sending water downstream.
Even lower, water could fall too low to flow through the dam at all, keeping it from getting to the Grand Canyon, Lake Mead, farmers and major cities such as Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles.
Water levels had been forecast to drop below the hydropower intakes level as soon as this summer.
Reclamation’s plan will likely stave off catastrophe at Glen Canyon Dam, but it will do little to solve the problem that imperiled it in the first place. Climate change has left the river with less supply, and humans have not been able to adequately rein in demand.
“This action that's being taken is a band-aid solution for a gaping wound,” said Eric Balken, executive director of the nonprofit Glen Canyon Institute. “It's a short-term measure that does not get at the root of the problem, which is over consumption of water.”
The current guidelines for managing Colorado River water expire later this year, providing an opportunity to rewrite the rules for the current dry times. The people in charge of the river have not seized that opportunity. Leaders from the seven states that use the Colorado River have spent more than a year at a standstill in negotiations. If they can’t agree, Reclamation could force big, mandatory water cutbacks on them to keep dams working. Drafts of those plans show deep cutbacks to Arizona’s supply.
Mandatory cutbacks implemented by the federal government would likely trigger lawsuits and could end in a messy Supreme Court battle.
Even the recently-announced plans to prop up Lake Powell have stirred tension among the states.
Arizona’s top water official told KJZZ that other states have not done enough to protect Lake Powell. States on the other side of the Colorado River divide say they want the water in Flaming Gorge Reservoir to be replaced.
Balken, with the Glen Canyon Institute, said this crisis is an opportunity to look towards bigger fixes in the future. His group advocates for a new system that brings water around Glen Canyon Dam.
“Regardless of how many cuts in consumption we have,” he said, “There's no getting around the fact that Glen Canyon Dam is proving to be a roadblock for water delivery. Pretty soon we're going to have to deal with the plumbing problem at Glen Canyon Dam.”
